Red Sox Owner On Crawford, Epstein, Lucchino

Red Sox owner John Henry joined 98.5 The Sports Hubthis afternoon to deny that Boston's upper management smeared Terry Francona and the Red Sox in the Boston Globe this week. He also discussed a number of Red Sox-related issues. Here are the details:

Henry says he "personally opposed" the signing of Carl Crawford, but deferred to Boston's baseball operations department. Neither the Crawford signing nor the Adrian Gonzalez deal was a public relations move, according to Henry.

Henry didn't deny that Theo Epstein has talked to another club, but he declined to comment further until there's something to announce. The Cubs are in the process of making Epstein their GM.

Though Henry would have liked for Epstein to be Boston's GM for 20 years, he realizes "you don't always get what you want" and that being the GM in Boston comes with an immense amount of pressure.

Actually, this jives somewhat with reports that were coming out at the time of Crawford’s signing – that ownership wasn’t especially convinced it was a good deal, but that Theo and others pushed for it hard and were ultimately able to get the financial approval from ownership.

Ownership being divided on the Crawford signing was reported on pretty early in the signing. But really – it doesn’t matter.

If he had squashed the signing the story would be ‘Henry is a dictator’ or like the Texeira deal a few years ago, it’d be ‘Henry was cheap’. Or even better yet ‘he’s meddling in things he doesn’t know about’…

Just like if the team had made the playoffs the beer, chicken wings and video game playing would be a puff piece on the team’s unyielding chemstry and laid-back demeanor. Give me a break. This hysteria is such a game for mouth breathers to have something to explain an anomaly on. The sports media in Boston has gone full-blown sociopath.

And 5 minutes ago people were calling the Boston media soft & wondering why they didn’t get anything. It’s sad that even I could tell in June that this team lacked chemistry. I hated this team since day one. Well, I hated Jed Lowrie since April & I hated the rest of the team since June.

But hey we should all just give this team a pass for being the embarrassments that they are because they were exhausted. Yup. The Yankees have it right, no complaining & whining.

This team is unlikable. Firing the manager & changing GMs isn’t going to change that. The players are the same. But hey, John Lackey is awesome so lets root for him.

What the bosox fanbase should know by now is that the Red Sox “PR Machinery” will always turn a blind eye to the troubles and problems with the team, and will sell EVERYTHING as a GREAT thing.

But once you become a “burden” of some sort (specially if management/owners are about to get rid of you) then they’ll try by all means to destroy you and your reputation.

A good team needs good fans, and good fans demand good media, media that is objective, neutral and doesn’t take sides, because lets face it, for the media it is way easier to be on the owners side than those who are about to depart or that are already in other teams.

It is not something new, it has happened before in Boston. People often say that NY media is ruthless, and yeah, it is, because they do their work.

And lets face it, ‘mum’ was the word for when released info indicated that Ortíz tested positive; mum was the word when he said he would explain it and never gave a real, credible, sincere explanation; mum was the word when it was known that Manny had cheated, and with two cheaters in a team it is only fair to investigate why those positives were not reported by George Mitchell; because mum was the word back then when the report went after certain teams in certain cities and NOBODY dared to question if the report was objective and neutral.

It is good that the Boston Globe article appeared, because come next year, fans will already know what to expect from their players and will demand more from them, players will know that fans will not allow them to once again slack. That of course will be true as long as fans obligue their media to report them what IT IS happening and not what ownership wants people to know… remember “Big Brother” from the “1984” novel? well, media acts like the “Ministry Of Truth” of the Red Sox owners/management, and you as fan, shouldn’t accept it.

John Henry is proving every time that he opens his mouth how dysfunctional this team really is right now…it is sad…I’m sure he wasn’t complaining when people were lined up ordering Carl Crawford shirts and jerseys from the team shop…

Geez, not the best business move saying i was opposed to signing our LF. That should give crawford a ton of confindence moving forward. True or not, what a terrible admission! Ill be heading to the cubs as well! C-ya Fenway

i think it’s an experience thing rather than age. through his accomplishments and his resignation, epstein had secured a much higher degree of autonomy than cherington is likely to have. glad to have cherington’s mind on board, but this is a lucchino front office now

this is definitely a leap forward for lucchino, which means a leap backward for my support of the club. i feel like that doesn’t even need explaining at this point; you all can see the dysfunction. it has spread to henry now

theo and henry have traditionally been very close. the power struggles were between lucchino and epstein and henry broke ties. that’s exactly what lead to epstein resignation in 2005 (lucchino) and exactly what brought him back (henry, promising him more autonomy from lucchino)

it’s impossible to know when or over what subject the final shift took place this year, but i’m confident epstein’s decision to be done after 2012 (and consequently to take the cubs job now) was a function of what he foresaw as the future of that power struggle. for example, there was a clear divide over francona — with epstein in his corner and ownership opposed — that emerged as early as august and ultimately saw terry walking out. even with lucchino’s contract set to expire, that was an indication that things were not soon to change in the power department. theo loves boston, but in terms of his career prospects there, the writing was on the wall

so i certainly can’t blame theo for leaving. and while i also can’t blame ownership for insisting on adequate compensation for their talented executive, it seems like every day now they give me something new to blame them for

Seriously, don’t bother. Henry was late to the dance. Sports radio has polluted the discussion on this that no matter how up front he was, they’d figure out a way to kill him. Glen Ordway has been shitting his pants all week about Henry not saying anything and now he’s out today on the radio – and Ordway’s shitting on him for it. It’s a game with the Boston media. Rich guys in MA are the perfect dudes to storm the castle against.

What are you doing Henry? Way to cause MORE freaking drama. God damn, Boston really does have tons of BS going on… Complaining about one double-header? REALLY!? YOU’RE MAKING MILLIONS AND MILLIONS OF DOLLARS A SECOND.

Boston needs to close their mouths, not make excuses and move on. The past season is now over for them, regroup with what is left, go find a manager and just shut up about who was at fault. EVERYONE WAS. End of discussion. Now, can we get a manager and progress toward a better season next year? We don’t need flashy names to sign in the offseason, maybe just a right fielder who is capable of handling his own (preferably right handed or switch hitting; Reddick is good but it’s too lefty dominant in the lineup). Depth signings as usual and see what can be done about players who have struggled, in terms of better training, not trading them.

1.) He said he was personally opposed to the Crawford signing, but doesn’t meddle in baseball ops’ affairs. So I guess we should chastise him for not being more like Steinbrenner or something?

2.) Couldn’t you spin the improvement of any team by signing a free agent as a PR move?

3.) They’re not randomly blaming things because they don’t know wtf the actual problem IS right now. It’s like treating a sore arm. Then back pain. Then tingling sensations… when the real problem is none of those – it’s an actual f-ing heart attack. They’re trying to identify the problem. Too bad its not on Sports radio’s schedule.

4.) Listening to the hysterics from the ambitiously stupid Boston sports media and the dullards that listen to their shows on a regular basis is really pointless. This team is essentially a good starting pitcher away from being the best in baseball. Of course, we’d rather talk about fried chicken. I swear to god if these guys on the radio were my kids, I’d beat them every day out on principle.

1. Yes, if that’s how you define a Steinbrenner (which, btw, is not a bad owner to model yourself after if you’re into winning), than yes, he should be more like him. You don’t throw your own players under the bus when the entire team just had a meltdown and you have the guy for six more years.

2. No because the belief is Crawford doesn’t fit into the Sox offensive game plan and he was signed purely for falling ratings. Not everyone signs players due to falling ratings especially when they don’t honestly believe they will improve the team for that type of value.

3. How will they find a solution by bashing guys like Francona and Epstein who aren’t even on the team anymore? How will it be a solution to bash a guy you’re supposed to be building around?

4. One starting pitcher away? You might have to get rid of two of your current ones if the NATIONAL and local media is accurate. That leaves you with Buchholz off a season long injury and Lester. And who is going to relieve those starters? Bard and Aceves 85 times each? The Sox had holes which were ignored THIS season and so far nothing has indicated they are one starter away from somehow fixing those holes next season.

Not to jump on the late great Boss whom I love with all my pinstriped heart but he was never above tossing a player under the bus. George would toss anyone, including himself on occasion, under the bus if he felt they deserved it. From “Mr. May” to”Fat Toad” Steinbrenner demanded success and did not hesitate to publicly call out people he felt failed. Yes, that did slow down towards the end of his reign but no Yankee ever was given the impression that “World Series or bust” didn’t apply to them.

That being said Steinbrenner also did a great job in his post-suspension years of using his loud mouth for the good of the team. There was a pattern of George dominating the back pages of New York rags with his mouth to distract from on the field stuggles.

To your final point. You are absolutely right. The 2011 Red Sox were a team out of spring training that had glaring holes that were over shadowed by the A-Gon and Crawford signings. The bullpen was a mess and neither Jenks nor Wheeler were the mops to clean it up. The Rotation was as only slightly less weak in the back end as the Yankees’ was coming in. Plus their line-up had become very top heavy and overly lefty. Take that some injuries and a farm system that had no right now answers for anything other than the OF and you know what you get? A season that ends on 162 as opposed to 167 or beyond.

” The Rotation was as only slightly less weak in the back end as the Yankees’ was coming in.”

The back of our rotation going in was John Lackey who finished 2010 with a 4.40 ERA (An average of three runs, six innings every time out, a quality starter) and had an ERA under 4 in the second half (And was considered a big bounceback candidate) and Tim Wakefield, who was admittedly awful in 2010. as our number five. The Yankees had bigger question marks 3-5 than the Red Sox had 5-6. To say otherwise is purely operating off of hindsight. The Sox went in with a visibly more complete rotation, the Yankees finished with one due to injury to Buchholz and completely unanticipated performances from Garcia and Colon.

“Plus their line-up had become very top heavy and overly lefty. ”

This was constantly brought up and constantly refuted. A lefty-heavy lineup is a problem against lefty pitchers and lefty pitchers comprise less than 25% of the league. That aside, it turned out to not matter anyway, as the Sox hit lefties quite well, a big contributor to that being Gonzalez and his tutelage of guys like Ortiz (Who after being a disaster against lefties in previous years, actually hit lefties better than righties in 2011 by over 50 points in OPS).

“Take that some injuries and a farm system that had no right now answers for anything other than the OF and you know what you get?”

In fairness the only injury concern was due to inadequate pitching depth which was, in reality, the case with pretty much every single team in the MLB outside of the Braves (Who didn’t make the playoffs anyway).

Well, if Lackey was “good” then you’ve gotta admit that Hughes was even better than him (lower ERA, WHIP, FIP, more wins, less hits per 9 inn, more K’s per 9 inn).

Plus, you’ve got to remember that Beckett had a horrendous 2010 season and there were doubts, same doubts that for example people had about AJ Burnett, though a better comparison would be Daisuke Vs Burnett.

In the end the bosox rotation was set as this:

Lester = an Ace

Beckett = coming off a horrendous 2010 season (he has had a good season followed by a bad season since he has been in Boston)

Buchholz = coming from his first good season with Boston, being merely regular to bad in the previous two, so, there were doubts to whether he would regress or repeat.

Lackey = does it need explanation?

Daisuke = same as Lackey

So yeah, there were reasonable doubts in two of them, another one was a ‘lets hope he has a good season’ (Beckett) and another one was a ‘let’s pray he doesn’t regress’ in Buchholz.

Yanks had doubts in everybody but their ace, with just a ‘let’s hope that he still has control’ in a Bartolo Colón who never lost his speed even in his struggling years, and a ‘let’s pray that the new pitching coach can help him’ in Freddy Garcia (who was coming off a season eerily similar to 2010’s Lackey and Matsuzaka), plus a ‘can he pitch?’ in Nova (ended up being a great asset).

i disagreed with king goerge about a lot of things, but i always admired his approach. his expectations should have been high; his players should have been accountable. your boss should call you out if you’re underperforming or failing to take your job seriously

but that’s not exactly what henry is doing here, or what the sox ownership has ever done. they’re just kind of sneaky and gossipy and passive-aggressive overall. they’ve pretty much always been this way, it just doesn’t get noticed when things are going well

The guy pulled his car off the road, drove to a studio unannounced and took 95 minutes out of his day to answer questions he’s never answered before. What’s passive-aggressive about that, exactly?

The guy just admitted he wanted Epstein on for ‘another 20 years’, called Francona the best manager in team history. I mean for the love of peete, people! What’s he supposed to do, masturbate to pictures of them to show us he cares?

Passive agressive is exactly what he did: prise somebody and while you’re at it, you punch him in the groin.

“I loved my GM i wanted him to stay with us for 20 years… but it is not my fault, BLAME HIM for that bad acquisiton that everybody booed off the field, because you know, i am good and i love him but that was not my call”.

“Yes, if that’s how you define a Steinbrenner (which, btw, is not a bad owner to model yourself after if you’re into winning), than yes, he should be more like him. You don’t throw your own players under the bus when the entire team just had a meltdown and you have the guy for six more years.”

Except Steinbrenner basically spent his entire life throwing people under the bus. Heck, even his kids are making a routine habit of it (Does no one remember Hank basically throwing Jeter under the bus last offseason).

“No because the belief is Crawford doesn’t fit into the Sox offensive game plan and he was signed purely for falling ratings. Not everyone signs players due to falling ratings especially when they don’t honestly believe they will improve the team for that type of value.”

That might make sense if not for the fact baseball viewership was down in general and the Sox had already traded for Gonzalez and basically turned interest in the team up to a point it hadn’t been since the 2007 pre-season by the time Crawford was signed. That and Epstein’s job is to handle baseball operations, not marketing and it was a well known fact back when he was signed that Henry wasn’t completely on board. There’s no logical reason to assume ratings was the reason Crawford was signed.

” One starting pitcher away? You might have to get rid of two of your current ones if the NATIONAL and local media is accurate. That leaves you with Buchholz off a season long injury and Lester.”

Lester was involved in Chickengate too and no one with any actual sense is talking about shipping Beckett out of town, he was far and away our best starter this season. Lackey’s effectively garbage, but we’ve got a front three that can hang with just about anyone and unquestionably a top three offense. So yeah, with a front three of Lester, Beckett and Buchholz, if we can land a three/four quality starter, then we’re pretty much golden.

And the fact the national media picked up is pretty effectively irrelevant. Where do you think the NATIONAL media picked up the story? Oh yeah, a piece in the BOSTON Globe. Beyond that, if you took a couple of minutes to actually listen to the interview, Henry goes on record saying that the media’s basically mangled the entire thing and blown it out of proportion, effectively calling Felger and Mazz a big part of the problem.

” And who is going to relieve those starters? Bard and Aceves 85 times each?”

Name me a team that has a bullpen with no question marks. Go ahead. Just like pretty much every other MLB, we’ll sign some non-tenders and see what happens. As it stands, the front office will probably bring Papelbon back and a bullpen consisting of an elite closer, a top flight setup man and a long reliever/swing man who can go three innings two or three times a week is better than most teams have (Heck, there are teams still in the playoffs that don’t even have that). Heck, look back at the 2007 playoffs, Okajima and Delcarmen imploded in the playoffs, Gagne was Gagne and Lester was ineffective in relief and we won a World Series with a rotation of Josh Beckett, a 38 year old Schilling and a guy who’d missed the entire prior season and most of 2007 to lymphoma.

“The Sox had holes which were ignored THIS season and so far nothing has indicated they are one starter away from somehow fixing those holes next season.”

Holes that many other teams had. The Yankees went in with one reliable starter, the Rays had almost no offense to speak of (Kotchman and Damon at first and DH? Nobody expected that to fly), the Tigers had Verlander and then nothing and the Rangers lost Cliff Lee. The Cardinals lost a huge chunk of their rotation to injury, the Brewers were considered a longshot and the Diamondbacks were a complete mess and considered probable to finish in last place. The ONLY playoff team that went into the season without any massive holes was the Phillies and they’re sitting at home watching on TV now, just like the Red Sox.

This whole dance is such a game that no matter what ownership or management says – they’re not going to win. Everything is spun around to the evil rich guys and the fat overpaid team and blahblahblah. I’m sorry the Boston sports media didn’t get to take another trip to the World Series so they show us how important they are by mugging into a national TV camera. When they don’t get their way, someone has to pay, but so much of this so so functionally ridiculous that it blows my mind that Sox fans are giving it a free pass – or that the national media isn’t openly mocking the local yocals…. oh wait. They are.
But you can clearly tell there’s nothing they’re going to do to fix this. The Boston Media’s made up their mind at this point. If Henry had stayed quiet – then the rumors getting out were orchestrated by him. He shows up to answer questions today on his own accord, and then Felger and Mazz start questioning his competence as a leader, wondering how he let the leak get out. How on earth do you win a conversation when every time you give an answer, the media changes the framework of the question to fit their goofy narrative.

Or how about Youkilis who was heralded by the media as holding his teammates accountable last year when he publicly quesitoned Ellsbury’s slow recovery and then saw that praise turned into a reason to why he’s a clubhouse cancer this year. You really can’t win.

And am I the only one who thinks it’s weird that lack of team chemistry is cited when you’ve got a team that’s drinking, eating and goofing off together? Wouldn’t that be a sign of the exact opposite or something? Even more, I love how people have insight into the ‘Red Sox offensive game plan’. What plan was that exactly and who makes it? Was Francona kicking and screaming that Carl Crawford was going to mess up his master plan or something? And if ratings were the issue – and the ‘glaring holes’ in the pitching staff were as ‘glaring’ as we’re saying they are – why didn’t they go after Cliff Lee who is both a bigger star than Crawford and a pitcher? Wouldn’t that make more sense for ratings? The complete lack of perspective on a team that was essentially a game away from none of this nonsense going on is incredible. The sense of entitlement in Boston – especially amongst it’s media trolls – blows my freaking skull. It’s awful. All of it stemming from a story of ‘unnamed sources’. If I were a player, I’d never freaking ever play there after watching what happens when the media doesn’t get to ride your jock to glory.

And in henry’s defense. I think he went selectively public with the Crawford bit to prove that he was going to be candid. I think he already did that by showing up spontaneously on the show, but I think he was trying to reinforce it. It didn’t come off as him being a jerk at all I didn’t think.

“Or how about Youkilis who was heralded by the media as holding his teammates accountable last year when he publicly quesitoned Ellsbury’s slow recovery and then saw that praise turned into a reason to why he’s a clubhouse cancer this year. You really can’t win.”

This one’s been driving me nuts all season. Youkilis actually gave an interview a few weeks ago which I enjoyed quite a bit, I’ll see if I can dig up a link. The guy was basically a hero last season for calling out Ellsbury and a pariah for daring to question him. PICK ONE!

“And am I the only one who thinks it’s weird that lack of team chemistry is cited when you’ve got a team that’s drinking, eating and goofing off together? Wouldn’t that be a sign of the exact opposite or something?”

THANK YOU! This one’s been bugging me since the story broke. Did they have too much chemistry or something? I mean, the only instance of people actually NOT getting along well that I’ve heard was that everyone was down on Ellsbury, who didn’t seem particularly phased considering the monster season he had.

Well… to be fair, it was a faction of the group drinking, and playing videogames while eating KFC, while another faction was trying to win REAL baseball games. And to top it off you’ve got another faction comprissed of two guys, Lowrie and Ellsbury who don’t get along with the rest, you’ve got another faction in the whinny guys Youkilis and Adrián.

Not for nothing the old adage by Julius Caesar goes: Divide et vinces (split them and you’ll win). The Red Sox as a group was divided in factions, and those factions failed to communicate between them and as a result, they had one common goal and various other different goals, and that’s a failure for the Manager.

Heck, even Francona acknowledged in something more or less like the following: “there were guys in the clubhouse that i wanted in the dugout with their teammates”.

And if the manager acknowledged it, then you know that something very wrong happened; and i think it won’t help Francona in the least because he ended up prortayed as a weak manager who can’t get ahold of the EGOS present in the best team (in paper) that money bought.

It’s fine if Henry was against the move and let it go through anyway because he deferred to the baseball people. It’s not fine for him to go public with that information. For all we know, Moreno felt the same way about the Vernon Wells deal, but when he fired Reagins he went out of his way not to blame it on that and make both Reagins and Wells look bad.

Henry said that he was personally opposed to the deal at the time but that he deferred to the scouting and baseball operations guys because they know better than he does – At the time Theo said that he had to convince them to make the deal, so there really isn’t anything new here at all; the only thing you can possibly say is that it wasn’t a good idea to announce it publicly.

In the same interview he defended Theo and said that he wished he would stay for another 20 years, and he said that he (Henry) takes full responsibility for everything that goes on with the Sox. He also essentially said that the article slandering Tito was shameful.

No, I get that and I recognized it in my post, but people are making a big deal about the fact that he didn’t support the deal. Him saying it on the radio was stupid, him thinking it isn’t even new information (or inherently bad).

So then can we make up our minds – is he supposed to be like George Steinbrenner and give people hell or is he supposed to just let everything slide – of which he’s been getting hammered for all week?

Its pretty obvious he was trying to prove how candid he was being. Nothing more, nothing less. Brian Cashman opposed the Soriano signing, too remember? Was that stupid of him to say on camera? Or is criticism reserved just for players we don’t like?

I’ve said a couple times now that it was stupid to do that, so I agree with you, but to be fair the quote was taken out of context.

He was asked if the deal came from ownership rather than Theo and if it was done as a “PR” move and he was saying that no, in fact, he was opposed to the deal and it was Theo who had convinced him to do it, essentially saying that to the contrary it was a pure baseball/talent move, unfortunately he said it in a way that could very easily be made to sound pretty bad.

He also said that Crawford simply had a down year and that he is far too talented not to go back to being the player he was in Tampa.

Sometimes it is better to go public and say politically correct things like “about Crawford? that was a decision we as an organization took because we are conviced he is a great player who will help us in our quest to win a world series, he had a down year but i don’t have doubts that he’ll rebound next year”.

But… as always… the “money people” always assume that they can run their mouths and nothing will happen and nobody is going to question what they said.

Sure it would be a tad hypocritical to say that it was a group decision, but behind closed doors you can either play the blame game with your employees or suck it up and move on.

Ben, in the interest of full disclosure, I think it may be worth linking to Peter Abraham’s latest article on the Extra Bases blog. A lot of these statements are fleshed out in more detail and in proper context. The little snippets above are misleading to the point (As obvious by the comments section) that people are basically flipping out over something relatively minor compared to the other garbage going on. A couple excerpts which really clarify things:

“At some point, Theo decided that 10 years was a long time to be general manager of the Red Sox. I don’t think people realize what these two people, Tito and Theo, gave over the last eight and nine years respectively. They brought two World Series to Boston and it’s 162 games, 365 days a year. It’s tremendous pressure so we knew at some point that he [Epstein] was not going to be general manager of the Boston Red Sox and we knew that was probably going to be, almost certainly going to be by the end of next year so, this wasn’t a surprise.”“Yeah, but not to the point where we didn’t do the deal,” Henry said of the $142 million dollar transaction. “If there are enough of us usually someone is against every deal and it just happened to be I was the one at that time. I only said that because they’re in there on the radio trying to say that we spent $300 million for P.R. purposes which is ludicrous, misinformation.”

I am (was?) a fanatic Red Sox fan who, as a little kid, actually attended the infamous Bucky Dent game in 1978. But I am so utterly disgusted with the Sox right now that I sincerely hope that they come in last for as long as John Henry owns the team.

Seriously. I am going to root for the Yankees and whomever plays against these @ssholes for the foreseeable future. F you Henry!

Crawford has a guaranteed contract that compensates him at the rate of $20,000,000/year for a span of 7 consecutive seasons, to play baseball professionally, in Boston. By all accounts, his below average performance in the 1st year of his contract did not warrant a $20,000,000 salary. Is it fair to say that he stiffed the Red Sox, the people who buy tickets, and the team’s owner, Mr. Henry? By how much? $15,000,000, $16,000,000??? I, for one, think so, and either number will do.

In all candor, if you and I gave big bucks to a guy who turns around and stiffs us, we wouldn’t like him very much either. We certainly would not have many nice things to say about this guy! In fact, we would without a doubt, be royally PO’d about him!

So who can blame John Henry for being less than diplomatic about Crawford….?? Crawford stiffed him for $15M in 2012. Will he do the same again in 2012? If he does, he, Crawford, should be run out of town….if not by Mr. Henry, then by the loyal Red Sox fans living throughout New England.

The fans can always start an “Occupy left field at Fenway” protest group too, and march against Crawford’s very existance until he returns the money he has not earned to his employer, then quietly leaves town.. on his own. :)

“Stiffing” the Red Sox would be if he intentionally played bad, or didn’t give it everything he had. Crawford was far from doing either of those things, he simply had a bad year. It happens. Get over it.

If fans run Crawford out of town as they ran Buckner way back then, then Crawford would be penalized by the league, he wouldn’t get paid anymore, but the money he already has in his pocket will stay with him, and even if the Bosox ask the league to ban him for the years he had lef in his contract, he would be sitting in his home, eathing KFC, drinking beer and playing videogames while laughing at the bosox fans with the 20+ million dollars he got from them.

Look at the bright side of things: bosox fans have now opened their eyes at how the Boston management/owners/media has acted for a loooooooong looooong time. And that fans were the puppets who legitimized what management/owners/media did and said, by acting like lemmings walking to ‘nobody knows where’ because ‘nobody knows why’.

Reminds me a lot of the Ministry Of Truth from George Orwell’s novel 1984.

They signed Crawford in a panic when they thought Ellsbury might be done or have “Eric Chavez” disease. Then when Cashman talked to Crawford, Boston upped the ante. But his talents were blown out of shape by his steals. He’s always been a guy who struck out too much and didn’t walk enough. If he’s not on base distracting pitchers, he’s Nick Swisher, with not as much power as Nick who also walks 90 times a year. Crawford turns 30 this year and shows signs of tired legs already. Crawford is a good candidate to be traded for and equal “$ vs production problem”, say Alphonso Soriano, who could replace Ortiz at DH.
But I would really give Crawford one more year to prove he has gotten that bad.

The ego’s of upper management is too point the blame on someone else. I will tell you this as an ex player most of the players can’t wait to get out of Boston. The way to get the most out of your workers is to build them up, not trash them. Baseball is a game of failures and players are getting dumped on all year long by the media and fans, they don’t need to hear it from their boss’s.